Thirty years and I drove by my old elementary school
and saw the plywood for windows, playground silent,
the grass enjoying the disuse. I parked where the pine
trees stood behind the chain link fence, remembering
climbing their branches as a way to hide from hurt,
still fresh, as far as the rules allowed, wearing long sleeves
to save my skin from the sharp needles and resin.

The bell rang, children gone, taking me back
to Mr. McAffee's classroom where he taught us to make
paper mâché heads from chicken wire and strips
of newspaper and glue I picked beneath my fingernails
at night, gathering excuses for the morning.

He would have been about my age then,
waiting for his pension and dreaming of a future
to be something more ― when it turned out to be
more of the same.

     I put the car in drive, divorce papers
     scattered in the empty passenger seat, staring
     in the rear view mirror at myself in the tall branches,
     forearms covered.